expressing spiritual stuff through art. Art: it's not just the medium, the end result, the imagination or the skill or what people think of it that defines it, it is as much the human process of human re-creation that express the indefinable essence of what it means to be human. To engage and to try and appreciate art is a journey of embracing community; trying to see beyond yourself and your own world to the world somebody else experiences. It is intensely spiritual, it is the language of God. It embodies the mission of God and the human response.

On finding old art

I have been having a clear out of my stuff and I checked through a box of old journals and stuff and found a few sketches that I had done a good few years back. No titles but it was surprising what I could see in the images that invoked a sense of a spirituality. The one above is of a tree without leaves and yet other trees have leaves. ‘Lifeless’ is how I would title the image and it perhaps reflects how I was feeling in August 2002. I had been redundant for about 6 months without work and finding the search for new work quite dispiriting. It would be another year before I would be working.

This second image created at the same time I’ve called ‘Pathway’ and there is a sense of a pathway leading out into an open space and I guess that reflects the sense of direction that I began to sense as it was about this time I considered that my future work lay in another direction, as indeed it turned out to be the case.

The last image I found has no date but it likely was created about the same time. It depicts an old fishing smack at anchor in still water with some nearby trees and a hill in the distance. ‘Stillness’ is the title I would give this one and it perhaps reflects the stillness of a working boat that is waiting for the tide before putting out to sea to catch fish. Interesting that this is perhaps a suitable metaphor for the work that I would soon be engaged in in working for the Church (reference to Jesus calling of the disciples, Simon and Andrew – Matthew 4:18-20 ), although at the time I had no idea where, when or how that would take shape.